The Distant Home (12 page)

The nursing sister who had admitted Sally to the hospital and been the witness to her X-rays and blood test was now away from the hospital and glad to be. Here she was, in her boyfriend’s car, heading for the movies.

She had not quite intended to break her vow of silence on the subject of Sally, but she had sighed and told her boyfriend what a lousy day she had endured, and that had led to her saying how impossible Dr Chambers had been, and that had led to her saying why Dr Chambers had been so impossible. And now here she was explaining it all, and saying, ‘The kid’s an alien. From outer space.’

‘Oh come on!’ said her boyfriend.

‘I saw the green blood,’ said the nursing sister. ‘I saw the X-rays.’

‘You and your UFOs,’ said her boyfriend. UFOs were a matter of disagreement between them. He did not believe in their existence, but she always said that all of those people must have seen something, they couldn’t all be making it up. Then he would mutter about mass hysteria, and she would mutter about closed minds, and then they would talk about something else.

‘I saw them,’ the nursing sister said stubbornly.

There was a short silence in the car, and then her boyfriend had a great idea. ‘Do you mind if I phone my brother?’ he asked. ‘I’ll tell him about it.’

The nursing sister smiled snidely. ‘Your brother the incredibly famous TV reporter?’

‘The network he’s at is cutting staff. He could use the break.’

An hour later, the three of them were sitting in a car in the hospital parking area. Night had fallen but they had the light on inside the car. The nursing sister was seated in the back of the car, and alongside her was her boyfriend’s brother, a TV reporter whose hair was blow-waved like a game show host’s, and whose teeth looked as if they had been filed into points. The TV reporter was putting a $100 bill into the nursing sister’s hand.

‘I don’t like this,’ she said firmly.

He put another $100 bill on top of the first one.

‘I could lose my job,’ she said, slightly less firmly.

He put another $100 bill in her hand.

‘I mean I …’ Her voice trailed away.

As he peeled another bill off his roll, the reporter said, ‘No evidence, no story.’

The nursing sister was silent. She watched yet another $100 bill join the others. After all, she thought, what was wrong with going into the hospital and photocopying a few documents? She closed her hand on the money. ‘I’d just better not lose my job,’ she said.

* * *

Middle Street was settling down for the night. The street’s incredibly normal inhabitants had walked their dogs, put out their milk bottles and locked their doors, then settled down for an evening’s television, warm in the knowledge that nothing out of the ordinary could ever happen here in Middle Street.

In the Harrison house, Jim, Maria and Kate had eaten a meal of leftovers and were about to watch the news.

In Mrs Webster’s house next door, Sally and Bobby were eating in the kitchen while Mrs Webster sat in the front room, keeping an eye on the street while pretending to watch television.

This was how they saw, along with a million or so other viewers, one of the worst moments of Dr Chambers’s life. What made them all sit up was the news reader’s introduction. ‘And for those of us who believe in little green people at the bottom of our gardens, Central Hospital officials are denying tonight that they’ve had a visit from one.’ In both the Harrison and Webster houses, the television set was now being watched with full attention.

Half an hour before, Dr Chambers had been alerted that a TV news crew had arrived and wanted to speak to him. Chambers had not been at all sure that he wanted to speak to the news crew, so he had tried to dodge them.

They had ambushed him in the parking area.

‘Dr Chambers, this rumour that you have an alien from outer space in your hospital,’ the young man with the blow-waved hair and sharp teeth had said.

‘Absolutely no truth in it,’ Chambers had replied. The secret service people had made clear to Chambers the likely consequences of his talking to the media without permission. Under those conditions, he would have denied his name, status and golf handicap.

The young man with sharp teeth was not satisfied with the answer. ‘Our information is that the twelve-year-old girl has green blood and several hearts.’

Dr Chambers twisted his mouth into an approximation of a smile. ‘I don’t know where you people get this stuff from!’

The reporter held up the photocopies of the pathology reports. The nursing sister had earned her money. ‘From these photocopies of official hospital documents,’ he smirked all the while thinking talk your way out of this one, Doctor.

Chambers made a grab at the photocopies. The TV reporter backed away and hit Chambers with the follow-up question. ‘Is she from outer space?’

‘No comment!’

‘Do you have an alien here in the hospital?’

‘I said no comment!’ Chambers’ voice was developing a shrill edge. He could hear it himself. He would be screaming soon. He put his hand to the camera’s lens and pushed it away, turned, unlocked his car, got into it, and roared away, hotly pursued by the TV news crew.

On the newscast the news reader took up the story. ‘As we went to air, hospital officials were maintaining their wall of silence. This comment from Dr Harold Kruger, Professor of Anatomy, University of Sydney.’

Mrs Webster was so intent on the TV screen that she did not notice that Sally and Bobby were standing in the doorway behind her, watching with equal intentness as Professor Kruger, a grey-haired man in his early fifties, was shown examining some photocopies of pathology reports and X-rays. Kruger now looked up into the camera lens so you felt he was looking straight at you. His intelligence and seriousness were manifest. This man was no idiot, you believed what he was saying.

‘Without examining the patient,’ Kruger said, ‘I can make no conclusive comment. If these documents are accurate, however, the creature we are talking about is not human, and bears no similarity to any terrestrial organism within my experience.’

The reporter’s voice came from off-camera. ‘You’re saying it’s from outer space.’

‘I’m saying that if these documents are genuine, and not some foolish and elaborate hoax, then the subject is outside my experience of any life form from this planet. But you understand that I really wouldn’t want to speculate further without access to the specimen involved.’

The picture cut back to the news reader. ‘In an accident on the Hume Highway today, a tourist bus collided with a semi-trailer, causing the …’
Click.
Jim switched off the TV set.

Maria was weeping. ‘Calling
our
daughter an organism! A creature!’

‘It needn’t be Sally they’re talking about,’ Kate began, hopelessly, but stopped at Jim’s look.

Maria also reacted to the look. ‘You don’t believe them do you?’ she said. ‘Sally’s a normal child!’

‘Of course she is. People make mistakes. They mess up results all the time.’

‘I saw her born!’ Maria said. ‘That crazy night at the hospital when all the electricity failed, I saw her born!’

‘Mrs Webster was there,’ said Jim in an odd voice. ‘I told you at the time. When I got to the waiting room, Mrs Webster was sitting there in the dark, knitting. She’d only arrived in Middle Street that same day, but she said she was there to keep me company.’

Maria stopped crying. ‘What are you saying, Jim?’

‘I don’t know. But she just turned up that day, like a fairy godmother.’

‘There’s no such thing as witches!’ Maria said.

‘Who was talking about witches?’ Jim said.

‘Our mother believes in witches,’ Kate said. ‘We don’t.’

‘I wasn’t saying she was a witch,’ Jim said. ‘Look, we’re all getting spooked. Why don’t I make us some hot chocolate or something?’ He walked off to the kitchen.

Next door, Mrs Webster had turned off the TV at exactly the same moment as Jim had. She had then sat staring at the blank screen. It was out now. The public knew, and if the public knew, then
they
did.

‘What a load of bull!’

The voice had come from behind her. Mrs Webster had moved with blurring speed, snatching up her walking cane as she stood, and stepped back into a warrior’s defensive stance, holding the cane as if it were a sword.

She had found herself facing an astonished Sally and Bobby. She had smiled then, and lowered the cane. ‘Gave me such a start, you two!’ she had said.

Sally’s voice was cool, and controlled, and full of authority. ‘Is it, Mrs Webster? Is it a load of bull?’

For a moment, Mrs Webster did not answer, was trying to work out how to answer. That pause was all it took.

Suddenly Sally was moving, running to the kitchen.

Mrs Webster moved quickly after her, and Bobby with her.

They found Sally opening a cutlery drawer, bringing out a sharp kitchen knife. Before they could stop her, she nicked her finger and held it up to them. Her bluish-green blood was coming from the scratch. Sally was looking at Mrs Webster, her eyes alone revealing her anger. ‘At the hospital they were asking me questions about life on other worlds. Bobby heard nurses saying I wasn’t human. Are they crazy or is there something I should know?’

Mrs Webster remained silent.

‘You arrived the day I was born. And ever since, every story you’ve ever told us, every game we’ve ever played. There’s been a pattern. It’s as if you’ve been preparing me for this from the moment I was born.’

Mrs Webster still hesitated.

Sally looked at her cut finger. All there was now was a slim green line. With her other hand, she wiped the line away. The cut was already healed. It was if there had never been a cut there at all. Sally looked up at Mrs Webster.

‘What am I, Mrs Webster? And who are you?’

Just then the dishwasher beeped. Mrs Webster moved to the microwave oven, and touched the controls. Sally and Bobby stared as the door of the microwave resolved into a video screen, showing a TV network news van parked in the street outside.

Then Sally looked at Mrs Webster again, and it was as if the gadgetry did not surprise her at all. ‘So how about it, Mrs Webster? Am I human? Or what?’

‘Time you knew. I’d hoped to hold this off till you were older, but it looks like it’s time you knew.’

She walked into the living room, sat down on the settee, and opened her arms out wide, as she had so often done, right back to the time when they were really little. Bobby sat on one side, and Sally on the other, but they were not relaxed as they usually were. This time the story they were about to be told was terribly important.

‘This Earth we’re on,’ Mrs Webster began, ‘it’s like an island in the middle of an ocean. The people on the island think they’re the only people who exist, but they’re wrong. There are other beings out there, on other island planets, some of them good, some of them bad, some of them very dangerous.’

‘Do you come from out there?’ Sally’s voice was quiet, serious.

‘Yes I do,’ Mrs Webster said.

‘And do I?’ Sally’s voice was calm. She was ready for it. She realized that Mrs Webster had somehow prepared her for it all these years.

‘Yes, you do.’

‘And me?’ said Bobby.

‘No,’ said Mrs Webster, ‘not you.’

‘But we’re twins!’ Sally protested. ‘What you’re saying doesn’t make sense! Twins can’t come from different places!’

Mrs Webster nodded. ‘Doesn’t make sense, does it? But it will make sense if you let me explain.’ She paused, gathering up the threads of her story, and then went on. ‘There’s an Empire out there, and for the last thousand Earth years the Empire’s been fighting a war with invaders from the other end of the galaxy. The word for them in your language would be Ursoids. They look like big lumbering bears, but smart, you know? Smart as us.’

Bobby was looking at her strangely. She still looked like a little old lady but he had always somehow known she was different inside. ‘You always said you fought in a war. Is this the war you fought in?’

‘That’s right.’ Mrs Webster was staring at the wall, as if she could see all of her past life there. ‘I’ve fought hand-to-claw with the Ursoids, ship-to-ship engagements beyond Arcturus …’ her voice trailed away.

‘So you’re a general or an admiral or something?’ Bobby sounded awed.

Mrs Webster laughed. ‘Top brass? No! No, I’m a Marine Master Sergeant. Twelve years ago, I was serving on a ship. We were ferrying the Empress to the Origin Planet, and she was due to bear a child. We came under attack from an Ursoid flotilla. You have to understand that the Imperial Family keeps the whole Empire together. That child was the most valuable thing in the Empire that night. We weren’t sure we could get away, we were passing a little backwater planet so we hid the Imperial baby the only way we knew how.’

They were staring at her. ‘Little backwater planet?’ Sally asked. ‘You mean Earth?’

‘Yes. Earth. You have to understand something. We, the People we call ourselves.’ And here Mrs Webster smiled a lopsided smile. ‘Every sentient race we’ve ever discovered calls themselves something like that, we’re not like humans. We’re made of energy. And we hid the Imperial baby’s energy matrix in the womb of a planetary native who was about to give birth.’

‘The Imperial baby?’ Sally asked. ‘That’s me?’

Mrs Webster nodded.

‘So the planetary native is not my mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘So I’m not human?’

Mrs Webster smiled her one-sided smile again. ‘Human as I am.’ She broke off as suddenly the dishwasher in the kitchen started beeping again. She stood and moved into the kitchen. Sally and Bobby followed.

The screen revealed the TV reporter standing in the Harrison front garden talking into a microphone while his cameraman filmed him. Mrs Webster touched a control and they could hear his words.

‘Here we are in Middle Street at the home of the alien girl admitted to Central Hospital earlier today. We’ll see if we can get a few words with her.’

He walked swiftly up to the front door and knocked. There was a pause then the door opened and Jim Harrison was looking at the reporter, blinking, blinded by the lights attached to the TV camera.

‘Mr Harrison?’ asked the TV reporter.

‘Who are you people?’ Jim felt like a wild animal caught in a shooter’s spotlight.

‘Five Network News. Just like to have a word with your daughter Sally, Mr Harrison, her impressions of Earth, and what it’s like to grow up on another planet.’

He then made his first mistake. He tried to walk past Jim into the Harrison house. Jim, who found it very hard to get angry with anyone, got very angry indeed. Jim, who had never thrown a punch at anyone since he was in primary school, found to his amazement that his right hand had balled into a fist, and he was swinging it from somewhere near his knees in the direction of the TV reporter’s jaw. Jim, who even in primary school had never landed an effective punch in his life, suddenly found to his amazement that his right fist was connecting with the TV reporter’s jaw!

The TV reporter found himself sprawled on the lawn. What made it worse was that at this moment the timer on the water sprinkler clicked on and the lawn sprinkler started soaking the reporter’s suit.

Jim didn’t care. His right hand hurt and that made him even angrier. ‘And get off my lawn!’ he said, and went inside, slamming the door after him.

The TV reporter was still lying on the lawn, getting wetter by the second. The cameraman was pointing the camera at him. When there was a camera pointing at him, the reporter was used to talking, so he talked, saying the first words that came into his head. ‘So much for Mr Jim Harrison’s views on the public’s right to know.’

Then he got to his feet, and added, ‘Let’s just see what the neighbors think about this.’

As the TV reporter and his crew trailed down the path and headed for Mrs Webster’s house, Jim walked into his living room, shaking his right hand. He was amazed at himself. ‘I just hit a man. A reporter. He tried to force his way in here and I hit him.’

‘Good,’ said Maria.

‘If he complains, we’ll sue him for aggravated trespass,’ said Kate.

Meanwhile the TV reporter had reached Mrs Webster’s front door, and was knocking. There was a brief pause, and then Mrs Webster opened her door to find herself faced with lights, the TV reporter, and his cameraman with camera already rolling.

Smiling was a little painful for the reporter at the moment, but he tried. ‘Good evening. Five Network News. You may not be aware of it, but you have, living right next door to you, a little girl who may have come from outer space.’

Mrs Webster pushed a finger at his microphone. ‘One more remark along those lines, I’m going to make you eat that thing,’ she said.

‘Please. The public do have a right to know,’ the reporter said.

‘They have a right to be nosey? Get lost!’

The reporter had not got his job by being sensitive to suggestions like that. ‘I guess you’ve noticed some pretty strange goings-on next door. Weird lights, noises, things like that? Visits from extra-terrestrials?’

‘Get out of my doorway,’ Mrs Webster said.

The TV reporter now made his second mistake. He moved toward her, not away. Unlike Jim, Mrs Webster had hit a lot of people in her life. If you are a warrior, part of your job is hitting people. That difference aside, their technique was amazingly similar. Mrs Webster bunched her left hand into a fist and threw a punch from the general vicinity of her knees. The punch hit the TV reporter flush on the jaw and decked him.

‘Now get off my path!’ said Mrs Webster, and slammed the door. The cameraman was helpfully pointing his camera at the reporter who now said the first thing that came into his head. ‘Very violent neighborhood. Since the space girl arrived, this is Middle Street … street of fear!’ Then he staggered to his feet. ‘Okay. Cut. I think I just swallowed a tooth.’